Knowledge

 I'm teaching this culture course and I'm thinking about how knowledge is layered. 

On one level, there is general knowledge, what you think a well-educated person might know about, well, just basic history, geography. 

Then, if you are in the humanities, you would know what every good humanist knows. A little more about comparative religion, art history, linguistics. 

(Then there is the accidental knowledge you might have through hobbies. For example, my very limited knowledge of ornithology. My knowledge of jazz more than a Spanish professor needs.)

Then, specialized knowledge every Spanish professor knows. 

Then, say, a subspecialty within Spanish literature. A genre, a period. 

Finally, knowledge of own's own subsubspeciality, the field of one's research. 

The most relevant for the culture course is the first category, general knowledge, like knowing when the middle ages were. And then the knowledge specific to being a Hispanist. The least relevant is my specific field of research, because you want the students to remember general knowledge more than narrow questions. 

But the best thing is to put together things in a meaningful way, going back and forth between the narrow and the broad areas of knowledge.